How to choose an ecommerce payment provider

Summary

This article provides information on payment gateways that you can use with your Ecenica hosted ecommerce website.

Recommended Payment Gateways

Protx

Netbanx

WorldPay

Google Checkout

PayPal

When choosing a payment gateway consider the following;

Setup costs and timescale – how quickly can they approve your account? What are the setup fees (if any) and monthly or annual fees? Will you be asked to deposit a bond or insurance with them to cover any fraudulent transactions or chargebacks?

Do I require a Merchant Account – some providers such as Protx require you to have a Merchant Account whilst others, like WorldPay can offer this service as part of an inclusive service.

Transaction fees – Each provider has their own scale of charges ranging from 3-5% of the transaction fee. If you have your own merchant account you may pay a transaction fee to the payment provider around £0.35p/$0.50, plus a percentage of the transaction to your Bank/Merchant account.

Remittance – How quickly will the provider pay you the money from the transaction? Are there any charges for remitting the money to your account? WorldPay typically pays 30 days after transaction date. Banks offering Merchant Accounts vary from 3 days to 3 months.

How easy is it to integrate into my site? – Most providers offer levels of integration to suit your skills and requirements. If you want a really professional look, then you’ll want to choose a provider that lets you closely integrate their payment system into your existing site.

I want to store my customers payment details. Do any of the providers allow me to do this? WorldPay and ProtX offer a service that lets you store details on your site after you have proven the security of your site. In most cases this is a simple check that you’re using a 128 bit SSL certificate, your site is protected by a Firewall, declaration of what information you are storing and assurances of data-center security.